


Drift Away

by citrusella



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Painful Death, Scars, Slow Death, Steven Universe: The Movie, Zombies, but the rest of them are just pain incarnate okay, one of the sections of this ends kind of fluffy positive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella
Summary: There are timelines where Steven fell into the biopoison when the Earth cracked under his feet. Here we see three times Steven (technically) lived despite a dive into pure poison, and one time he didn't.





	Drift Away

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so my writing gland has developed a mind of its own again, and for that, I'm sorry.

He loses his balance. He falls in.

The last thing he hears before the goop engulfs him is four gems shouting his name.

* * *

White hot searing pain hits his every nerve, every facet, but only for a moment before the sensory attack grows so extensive that he ironically can't feel it anymore, even as it continues to happen. His skin is raw, then burnt, then dead.

But _he's_ not dead. He is very, very alive to experience all of this. Why is he alive? What's keeping him—

Oh no. Could it be his gem? How long can it keep it up? Fright overtakes his entire form, panic shooting down what's left of his spine.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's no way he's coming out of this alive. Or at least not recognizable. He doesn't even have the ability to climb out at this point as it is! He's not even sure if he has skin, bone, muscle, _anything_, anymore.

He wonders if the gems are looking for him. If the poison can hurt them the way it had been hurting him.

He has 37 hours to wonder before he knows no one is looking for him anymore.

* * *

The poison cuts through skin and bone like mayonnaise.

_That'll kill you faster._

He's still at the surface, but even in the relative shallows, he can feel whole parts of… of… _body_… just disintegrating.

_You won, and she chose you, and she loved you, and SHE'S **GOOOOONE**!_

A familiar whip wraps around his middle, and the only reason the owner's name doesn't immediately come to mind is because the pain is too much to focus on almost anything else.

_I am the ding-dong sunshine future, your friend forever, and I'm not gonna fall apart on you!_

Amethyst. He wants to forget the look on her face when she drags him onto the grass, but he can't look away. She can't, either. Which really isn't great because the others probably need both of them to make any sort of last-ditch attempt to stop this thing work.

_I'm just one big, super-wrong, good-for-nothing dud with a yo-yo!_

Still, against all odds… the world _doesn't_ end… the gems _do_ get their personalities back… he gets his _powers_ back—

And a snazzy new paint job. He supposes his gem can't _truly_ heal what's not there—the pink splotches mottling and striping his skin where his body never _quite_ comes back remind him of Watermelon Tourmaline, or Biggs, or Snowflake, or Jasper, and he supposes he's in good company.

_Only on Earth, where anything can happen._

* * *

It's quick, at least.

He feels skin, muscle, bone, sight, sound, touch, _brain itself_… just melt away.

But… then it floods back.

But it's not _him_.

After all, the curly-haired one's power is fading, as Sapphire said.

It keeps him alive, but only just.

He climbs out of the crack to the audible relief and then horror of those on the surface.

He groans a terrible groan, and Amethyst tries and fails to lightheartedly joke that he sounds just like a zombie.

It's even less funny when he lunges at her like one.

Want to.

Have to.

Need to.

_Form._

The voice is human, but the thoughts are pure gem.

There is not enough unaffected flesh, bone, mind left for the ailing gem half to work with, here, so it needs to find _something_, _someone_ else, to make it feel whole.

No matter what it takes.

* * *

It's slow and awful and he feels every second of it, even after he's sure it's eaten his nerve endings away.

He still sees the bright pink surrounding him, even after it devours his vision.

He still hears the hissing of poison swallowing person, the rush of fluid flowing around him to feast on flesh, even after it snakes into his ear canal and sinks its venom into his auditory system.

He reminds himself with the shred of brain that isn't focused on the unrelenting sensory torment that if getting dunked into it were pleasant, it wouldn't be biopoison.

He doesn't know how long it takes, only the moment when everything stops and he can finally just… relax.

And so Steven Universe dies.

And the Earth dies with him.


End file.
